Author Archive for: Brandon

Today I’m going to show you how to use a Tip Pick. This particular pick is the Bow-Tie by Cuetec. The Bow-Tie features as Scuffer, a Shaper and a Tip-Pick inside of it. A lot of people have this tool but they don’t know how to use it well. I aim to fix that today.

One very good was to use it is by taking the Tip-Pick part of it (with all the needles on it) and hit your tip with it. You want to rotate it a bit each time. Pretend you’re a slow woodpecker and you’ll get a pretty good rhythm going. The other way you can do it is to use the edge of it and press into it. You’ll want to rotate it a bit as well as you go. This will allow you to stick your needles in there much further. DO NOT stick the needles in the tip and twist it because that will break all the fibers in the leather tip and it will permanently damage it.

The other part of the BowTie is the Shaper part which is like a dome. When your tip gets mushroomed, you will just stick it on there and rotate it. Apply as much pressure as you need to.

The third part of the Bow-Tie is the Scuffer. This particular aspect of the Bow-Tie is similar to the actual Tip-Pick. This doesn’t work nearly as well as the Tip-Pick so I don’t recommend using this unless you absolutely have to (like if you somehow could only find the top half of the Bow-Tie and didn’t have the Tip-Pick.)

Today I’m going to show you a quick way to clean your pool cue shaft when you’re out at a pool hall. This technique is very effective at cleaning a dirty pool cue and you’ll probably to get it about 75% as clean as a professional pool cue repair shop will be able to do. Obviously, to get it fully clean, you’ll want to take it into one of those pool cue repair shops because they’ll have the tools to get it 100% clean.

What we need for this is: A paper towel (the natural, brown colored ones work best) and some water. You’ll want to wet the paper towel just a bit. A few capfulls of water is all your need. You don’t want the paper towel to get soaked, just nice and damp. After that, you’ll wrap the paper towel around the cue and you’ll want to move it quickly up and down the shaft to create heat. That heat and friction is what is going to force the dirt to come off. After about 30 seconds of this, you’ll notice that the cue is already quite a bit cleaner. If you continue to do this technique, you’ll start to see the cue become much cleaner.

Imagine you’re at a pool hall and you get a dent in your shaft. You don’t have your local cue repairshop nearby to fix it for you, so what do you do? Well, it’s actually quite an easy fix when you have the right tool. The right tool in this instance is the “Billiards and Darts Direct $2 Dent Buffer.” Yes, that’s right, it’s just an average, everyday beer bottle. That’s all you need and luckily, you should have plenty nearby if you’re at an average pool hall.

If you do this technique properly, you can take the dent out of your cue almost perfectly. Of course, this fix is not quite as good as what an actual cue repair shop will be able to offer, but it’s pretty close!

The science behind this is like this: Glass is extremely hard and the wood is very soft. The dent is like a crater and we’re essentially going to push it back to it’s original form using this beer bottle. Take the cue in one hand and the bottle in the other and begin to rub the bare glass of the beer bottle on your cue right at the spot where it’s dented. Do this for 20 to 30 seconds, until you begin to notice that the dent has vanished. You’ll want to apply a decent amount of pressure (but obviously, not so much pressure that the cue snaps in half).

If you do it right, the cue will look like new and the dent will be history!

I had a customer come into the store just the other day and they mentioned that the E-Grip kind of looks like a Bridge for pool. So he asked me, “Could I use that E-Grip instead of a Bridge Stick?”. I had to think for a moment because the thought had not occurred to me before now. I looked at the shape of the E-Grip. I compared it to a Bridge that was sitting on a nearby cue holder. I thought “Why not?”. So later that evening, I decided to try it out and see if the E-Grip could be used as a bridge for pool.

First I set up a shot that would require a bridge to make properly. Then I set myself up over on the far end of the table. I placed my E-Grip upside-down on the table right where I would need a Bridge. After I lined up my shot, I did a few practice strokes. The rubber on the E-Grip allowed my cue to move smoothly, which was a happy surprise.

I lined up my ball, took my shot and made my ball in the pocket! And right after my shot I lifted the E-Grip up with my cue to take it cleanly off the table. Being aluminum, the E-Grip was easy to lift up and the hook-like ends meant there was no chance of accidentally dropping it back onto the table.

So there you have it; the E-Grip can indeed be used as a Bridge for playing pool. Not bad for a “pool cue holder”, huh? :)

Today we’re going to see how the E-Grip compares to the other pool cue holders on the market. As you may imagine, the E-Grip is the most secure way to hold your pool cue. Watch these other pool cue holders as we demonstrate how even the most popular holders on the market still leave your cue extremely vulnerable. Be sure to head over to our Kickstarter project and become a backer of the E-Grip! You’ll be able to get one before anyone else! http://kck.st/z8iKpj

As you can see, the E-Grip is a much more secure kind of pool cue holder. The E-Grip can handle just about anything you can throw at it. Just in case you missed it, tf you’re looking to see some great slow-motion footage from a pool cue’s perspective, jump right to 1:08.

A lot of people have been inquiring about the E-Grip and how much space it takes up. Well, the short answer is, it takes up as much space as a standard pool cue case pocket. I purposely designed the E-Grip so that it can be easily transported inside a pool cue case. I kept getting frustrated when other cue holder products were either too big to fit in a bag or, worse yet, they compromised their design to become small enough. As you can see in this video, we hit the prefect spot with the E-Grip.

The device itself breaks down into two pieces that can be laid right on top of each other, thus saving space in the cue case. The E-Grip fits in most pool cue cases but, in the event that you have one with a very small pocket, we’ve got a solution for you as well. Simply thread the E-Grip through your cue case’s strap and lock the E-Grip to itself, creating a closed loop. This will keep the E-Grip safe and secure and it also ensures that you can’t forget to bring it with you next time you go out to play.

What if you show up to play pool and there’s no suitable table to clamp the E-Grip onto? Well, in that case, you can even clamp the E-Grip right onto the end of your cue case. Once you’ve done that and tightened it down appropriately, you can simply put your cue case on any nearby surface and it will give you a secure way to keep your cue upright, just like it was actually attached to a table. This is best demonstrated in the video, so be sure to watch it.

Hey there, Brandon Gramse here. You may know me from my pool playing tips videos that I post here on The Billiards Direct Blog. In addition to owning a billiards supply store in San Diego, I also spend time inventing new pool playing gear. Today I am releasing my newest device and it’s a big one; The E-Grip!

The E-Grip is a pool cue holder that is designed to keep your pool cue safe and secure whenever you’re not actively playing with it. In addition to it’s sturdy aluminum construction, the entire device is is wrapped in an impact-absorbing rubber so your cue won’t get dinged or nicked. The claw-like design of the E-Grip ensures that your cue can’t accidentally be knocked out; even an intentional kick won’t knock it to floor when it’s housed in the E-Grip.

I’m raising funds for this device through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter. You can be one of the very first owners of the E-Grip by going to this link and backing my project. I’ve also got a demonstration video on the Kickstarter page as well, so you can see the E-Grip in action!

I’m going to show you an easier way to get shape using your tangent lines; not going across them but rather going with them.

In the video above, you can see we’ve got a five ball on one end of the table and after I make that shot I want to get good shape. If I shoot the ball going across the tangent line, the shape isn’t that great. I have a hard cut or I have a cut in the side. Neither option is ideal.

After I hit the ball, I ended up going across the tangent line, which is that imaginary line that’s drawn from the other ball I want to make and the pocket I want to make it into. Now, lets try shooting it again while getting shape for the other pocket. This method makes the cue ball go away from the ball and then towards the ball. Once that happens, the cue ball is in a much better place and I have a huge amount of room for error.

In a way, this shot is the difference between an experienced player and an inexperienced player. You’ll often see the inexperienced players shooting for that narrow shooting space, while the more experienced players will try to get their shot to end up in a much larger shooting space.

I’ve gotten some questions about my store lately. A lot of YouTube users’ neighborhoods seem to be lacking in brick and mortar Billiards and Pool Supply retailers. That’s too bad because there’s really no comparison to getting to actually experience a pool cue by holding it in your hand.

While I may not be able to actually give you all the experience of visiting my store in person, I did make a quick video showing the various pool cues that I sell here at Billiards and Darts Direct in La Mesa, California.

As you can see, we have a lot of pool cues here. In fact, if you laid them end-to-end, we’d have over a half-mile of cues!

Lots of people ask me “What is a Safety?”. Well, I’m going to explain that now. As an added bonus, I’ll show you a simple safety that you can do yourself and really mess up your opponent’s game.

A Safety is basically one player blocking their opponent’s shot with another ball that’s opposite to their ball type. In the video above you’ll see that I’ve got a shot setup where I’m stripes and my opponent is solids. I don’t want to do a bank shot or any other type of shot so I’m going to play a safety. I want to try to get my stripe ball between the solid and the cue ball so that my opponent can’t make their shot.

A beginner is likely to screw this up is by hitting the ball way too thin. Even though they hit it soft, they hit it thin. As a result they leave their opponent a clear shot.

The best way to do it would be to hit the ball much more full; almost straight-on with just a little bit of an angle. As you can see when I hit the edge of the ball, the cue ball generates way too much speed even though I’m hitting it soft. This causes it to take off after it hits the rail. When I hit it full and soft, the safety has been perfectly executed and my opponent can’t possibly make their shot.